James DeMonaco, who wrote and directed the first film, is back to do both jobs again this time, and I think he's made leaps and bounds in terms of making use of his big idea. My biggest problem with the original film was that the scale of the story being told was a financial consideration, not a creative one, and it felt like it wasted the basic idea of a governmental decision to sanction 12 hours per year where anyone can kill anyone for any reason.

Now, what you think of that idea will go a long way to your overall reaction to "The Purge: Anarchy," but what is clear is that DeMonaco set out to make pretty much the opposite of the first film, telling a story that allows us to get a glimpse at the Purge as a whole. He still has a tin ear for dialogue, but it's obvious that his ambition is something he's really pushing himself to live up to with the second film. There is very little about "The Purge: Anarchy" that I could call sophisticated or subtle or even especially smart. But it is definitely a film by a guy who has a story to tell and he's committed to it this time, and damn if I don't admire the effort.

Here's a fun way to watch the film. Pretend it's a "Punisher" comic book, and Frank Grillo is playing The Punisher. Do that, and the film gets sort of awesome at times. Grillo is actually playing a man with no name, referred to in passing as "Sergeant," and he has one goal. He is going to use the Purge to hunt down a man who did him a great wrong. He is going to kill that man. And then whatever happens, it doesn't matter. That's his whole game plan.

But when he sees Eva (Carmen Ejogo) and her daughter Calie (Zoe Soul) being roughed up by some weird goons who are dressed like the Stormtrooper-stand-ins on some post-"Battlestar Galactica" piece of TV sci-fi junk, and he just can't watch that. It sets something off in him, and the film ultimately becomes a wrestling match between Sergeant's angels and his devils. Which of his natures is going to win out by the time the Purge is over? Will he fight to protect life, or will he do anything to take it? Along the way, Shane (Zach Gilford) and Liz (Kiele Sanchez) end up also taking refuge with the Sergeant as he makes his way through the streets of LA.

DeMonaco is more successful at creating a spooky masked street gang in this one, and he also has fun playing with expectations in the way various characters behave. Ultimately, I think he's got something on his mind here, and he tries to make this a more overtly haves-versus-have-nots oriented story. It's really, really, really really, really obvious, and when the film reaches its final set-piece, it feels sort of inevitable. I also came very close to wrapping things up early when there's a long rapey sequence that is admirably gross but really unpleasant and drawn out. I've talked before about what a cheap short-cut that is, and this film practically gallops to get to that scene. The only reason I stayed was because it was apparent that someone would show up to rescue them before it actually happened.

That's the sad truth about the movie… it's unfortunately obvious. DeMonaco has definitely grown from the first film to the second one, and I commend him for the ways in which he improved. But I think he needs to work with a writer next time, someone who can take these ideas and these situations and make them work in a more natural way, or a more stylized way, or a more darkly comic way, but in a way that would feel focused. "The Purge: Anarchy" improves upon the original, but it's still a long way from being the sort of smart, savage satire it would have to be to fully exploit such a socially charged hook, or the Sam Peckinpah style blunt instrument that would simply be impossible to ignore.

Paul Verhoeven's "The Purge"? Sign me up. But this one is really just for people who are feeling nostalgic since they finished playing the last "Grand Theft Auto."

A respected critic and commentator for fifteen years, Drew McWeeny helped create the online film community as "Moriarty" at Ain't It Cool News, and now proudly leads two budding Film Nerds in their ongoing movie education.

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I still think THE PURGE would make a great anthology series on Pay TV. Think about ! You could have dark as fuck episodes and then some light hearted, all playing with the idea of the one night, when all crime is legal.

You could have an episode about some guy who just tries to make it home alive, another one about a group of people who try to rob the bank they work in, another one about a battle between psychopaths and those are just plots that I made up on the spot! Imagine what a good writer's room could do with such a premise on a weekly base!

Because another good thing about a Purge TV series would be, that you wouldn't have to draw out that admittedly pretty absurd idea to feature film length every time. The concept's plotholes are much easier to swallow in hourlong bites IMO.

That's a pretty great idea, with a variety of fantastic directors examining it from a host of different viewpoints. Of course, the key would be to get great directors (either great name film directors or amazing tv workhorses like Jack Bender and Michelle MacLaren). The problems with those types of shows always comes when they schedule too many episodes and start farming out to talent several levels beneath the level that the concept was intended for, and we end up with disposable shit. Something like Tales From the Crypt had home high high points and low low points. The key would be to keep the episode and production order lean and mean and built around the truly great talent they could attach.

It's a C. It's up top, below the headlong and alongside the twitter and facebook icons. I always find myself having to hunt around for the grade, too-- something about the current design makes it really hard to locate.

The problem with this series is that the basic story point that all crime is legal for 12 hours is completely fucking stupid. It can't get past that because it never addresses all the questions that come up surrounding the logistics of this night and why the entire society that participates in it, doesn't live their entire lives around this night. I can't stand this idea. It reeks of something someone thought of while sitting around getting stoned and having a good game of "What if....?" It might work if they presented everyday society as some kind dystopian far right near-future thing where the rich routinely cull the poor, but they insist on presenting it as something that happens in a reality close to the one we live in. It's a high concept idea that unfortunately will never be fully realized because the studio doesn't provide the money and the creators have no fucking idea how to properly exploit the idea to it's full potential. The entire enterprise from the top down is completely incompetent and should be done away with in favor of anything even remotely better.

I agree with you in theory, but something about this series has struck a chord with a certain crowd. There are a lot of twentysomethings who really, really liked The Purge, and who are stoked for this new movie. I don't know if it's the socio-political subtext, or just the idea that all these repressed urges can finally be unleashed, or fear of your neighbors, or what. But there is a kernel of something there that's got its hooks into people, stupid or not.

I agree. It has struck a chord. I know some people who just fucking love the idea of these movies and that is just absolutely disturbing to me. Especially when they relate what they would do on purge day and you confront them this: "Well, Bob I think I would just rape your wife. But, it's cool because it's during the Purge and it's totally legal."

And here's where this story's idea comes to a screaming halt. This is where the REAL meat of this story lies. If I were in charge of this series, that's the movie I would make. It would be an affluent neighborhood of 'friends' who because of this annual free-for-all take out all their aggressions on one night. for the first twenty minutes or so, you show how great these people are the rest of the year and how they turn into complete and utter savages this one night of the year. THAT is the kind of society this kind of institutionalized murder day would create. But, the hook is, I would end the Purge about 45 minutes before the movie was over and show them the next day, WHEN THEY HAVE TO LIVE WITH EACH OTHER AGAIN. I would very carefully outline every single detail of what makes this night possible. I would show the aftermath on TV. I would have some kind of government spokesman talk about how horribly the people who tried to attack government and military installations were punished. But, more importantly you'd have to show these people not only dealing with the ramifications of their horrible actions toward each other, but how they dismiss it all and simply look forward to evening the score during the next Purge day.

In order to have this idea truly work, you have to have a society that is rotten to the fucking core. That would be the real horror behind this idea. Not only does everyone embrace it, but they're willing to overlook everything and be normal to each other the rest of the year, all the while under the surface the people you live with are plotting to rob, rape and murder you the next time it rolls around. And that has to be conveyed in a way that leaves ABSOLUTELY NO INNOCENTS IN THIS. Everyone is a part of it and that's the only reason it works.

It's the kind idea that's great for 5 minutes until it quickly falls apart on itself. Certainly not logical enough to hold up for the running time of a movie. But a lot of mass audiences are stupid, and like their stupid shit. It's why we have Fast and Furious and Transformers franchises dominating the box office.

Your idea about the fallout of the purge is a great one, and where the real idea behind it lies. Because like you say, the purge wouldn't help anything, it would just make it worse. Sure, there are sociopaths and psychopaths in our society, but they're not the majority as bad as things sometimes seem to be. When a normal person does something horrible, it eats at them and changes them. A whole society of people doing these things, and living among each other, would create a quick downturn where instead of helping anyone with a purge of violence that these scripts so naively suggest, it would instead create a festering society turning in on itself where people would become even more hateful and horrible, bottling it all up every year until the next purge where they could take their revenge. And that would be the percentage of people who could live with what they'd done and didn't kill themselves. The way the concept is being handled with these film seems absurdly naive and narrow-minded and the product of a 12-year-old boy. I guess that's why it appeals to the teens, 20, and 30somethings who still haven't progressed beyond that.

Screened this earlier this week. I was also glad they opened up the world a bit in this movie, but I agree that DeMonaco is the biggest problem with the series.

For one, the film flirts with very interesting ideas and then never engages them. There's the whole idea of what the rich are up to and another thread of a burgeoning revolution, but the film just treats them as obstacles instead of really wrestling with the themes or giving them a point -- and it cuts away from a climax that could have been interesting to finish its lame revenge subplot (and I have no idea why so much of that Grillo's backstory was withheld until the end...it felt underwhelming).

Also, for a movie with "Anarchy" in the title, it's surprisingly tame. They keep running into the same gang over and over, and the streets are largely empty -- I'm guessing a function of a low budget (there's a subway platform that I swear is literally just a brick wall with a subway sign on it). But there's never really the feeling that it's out-of-control and people are going crazy -- it feels more like a walk through a fairly lame Hollywood Horror Nights attraction.

And there's a scene at an apartment that I think was meant to be tense, but came off unintentionally (??) funny.

The only reason I'm really interested in this movie, and incidentally, why I hope it has some success, is Grillo. The concept is decent but it's obvious that all of those parts are way more ambitious in concept. I'm just rooting for the guy to have success cause I really dig his presence and I think he should be bigger.

I agree completely, vehemently even, with the idea that rape as entertainment is cheap, easy, and grotesque, especially in a shallow piece of exploitation like this. But I am brought up short by the suggestion that we should welcome Verhoeven's take on the same concept, because anybody who really knows Verhoeven (especially beyond the mischievous big-budget sci-fi satires most people have seen, and into his European catalog) must be aware that if Verhoeven were asked to explore this concept, there would be a thousand percent more rapeyness. Naturally he would be much more direct about it, putting more emphasis on the awfulness instead of the gross American thing where it's a nudging tease, but I don't think that helps the basic disconnect make any more sense.

I have no general problems with this review, but that line really bothered me. Don't you think that pigeonholing and dismissing television sci-fi is more than a little condescending and reductive, especially from someone who's job it is to give stories their fair shake?

I read that line differently in that he believes there has been no good sci fi on tv since battlestar or at least any truly original sci fi. To be fair I can't think of any but if anyone can let me know as I love sci if as a genre.

The whole idea behind the purge is just ludicrous and tests the bounds of what can be believable. That said, I agree that it could make for a hooky movie if you gave it to someone like Verhoeven or Mann or Ridley Scott or even Robert Rodriguez who would just take it to eleven and do it with quality or energy or both. A Walter Hill in his prime doing a Purge flick? Sign me up.

But DeMonaco just seems like such a hacky, unskilled writer/director that he can't even maximize the conceit of his own hooky premise. It's evident in the trailers, and I'm just not interested in this kind of low-fi, exploitation-wannabe cinema with no craft or punch behind its aim. Be dirty or be smart, but you've got to at least be one or the other.

That said, I love the idea of a Grillo Punisher, preferably working from some of the Ennis material, directed by someone like Vaughan. This guy has been a solid working actor for decades, and his star has been on the rise recently, but he still needs that breakout role to really get him recognized and put his career trajectory on another level. If this movie can lead to that, that's not a bad thing. But it still doesn't mean I want to watch this one.

Finally, gotta agree with you on rape scenes in general. Often times directors resort to it as a way to be dark and prove they're "serious" about creating a hopeless world, but I feel like if you're going to put that onscreen there's an instantaneous obligation that comes along with it. If I'm going to watch something dire and hopeless (like say The Road) there better be a reason for me to watch that, and the film better make it worth my while for enduring it. The Road definitely delivers on that front, and it's a potent film that's worth your time. But most crappy directors who throw in an exploitative rape scene just to get the audience feeling SOMETHING certainly don't have the craft or talent to justify doing it.

Im still playing the latest Grand Theft Auto, but no way am I paying to see this movie. The first Purge movie sucked so bad that I wouldnt go see this one even if Drew gave it an A grade. Looks ill be watching The Raid 2 again this weekend! Nothing wrong with that at all.

Didn't see the first one, but this one was pretty good. Great acting, felt like you were really witnessing the action. Thought writers could've been a bit more creative with the 3% elite; and how taking another's life impacts our psyche.

I saw one user who said the first movie was so hard to suspend disbelief that the purge would be allowed or lower crime, here is a funny joke I saw the movie The Purge, http://ponderingstuff.com/2014/06/28/breaking-laws/